Silent Killers (Part 1 of 2)

Ben BleiweissWednesday, March 12, 2008

ello everyone, and welcome to the first Morningtide-online edition of Building on a Budget! As you may remember from some weeks ago, I designed five decks, each pertaining to one of the "lost tribes" of Morningtide! I held a poll to see which deck you'd like to see evolved, and the winner was the Assassin deck!

The Assassin deck is an aggro-control deck. I drop creatures on the first few turns, drop more creatures which clear the way for my early creatures, and hope to keep momentum during the game in order to finish off my opponent. It's not a pure aggressive deck, because many of the cards are reactionary—for instance, Nekrataal is a pretty mediocre creature if you have to play him to an empty board. I wouldn't pay four mana for a 2/1 first striker with no other special abilities. It's not a pure control deck, because there are cards designed for attacking (Ghostly Changeling, Nightmare), though the deck does skew more towards control than aggro.

The deck is designed to take advantage of Scarblade Elite—with an Assassin card in the graveyard, the Elite can kill virtually any creature in Standard without shroud or protection from black. There aren't ways for me to just put Assassins into the graveyard (either through dredging or discard), so the deck is reliant on either trading Assassins on the board, sacrificing Garza's Assassin to kill a creature, or throwing a creature into the Phyrexian Vault.

Nightmare is in as a huge finisher. I wanted a creature that, if the game was stalled between me killing everything and my opponent killing my creatures back, would be able to finish my opponent off in a swing or two. Korlash is a non-budget card which accomplishes the same goal (5 tickets for Korlash—three for a ticket (or .33 tickets) for Nightmare). I briefly considered Mortivore or Avatar of Woe for this slot (since I'd be killing my opponent's creatures). I discarded that notion, because if everything is going to plan, I wouldn't have many creatures in my graveyard (thanks to Garza's Assassin and Scarblade Elite), making both Mortivore and Avatar of Woe less than optimal.

The big concerns for me going into playtesting this deck were as follows:

If I got Scarblade Elite, would I have a difficult time activating him due to the lack of ways to get Assassins straight into my graveyard?

If I faced a deck that was light on creatures (such as a heavy control deck with a lot of countermagic), would my high mana curve and (against creature-light decks) inefficient creatures cause me to automatically lose?

Was my deck too much on the line of aggro-control, and did I want to push it in one direction or the other (either as a more aggressive deck, or as a pure control deck?)

He kills my guys one by one and proceeds to wreck me completely with Void for three (taking out Phyrexian Vault, Moonglove Changeling, and Garza's Assassin from my hand) and then uses Liliana Vess to strip the rest of my hand. He eventually uses Vess to bring five guys into play at once (four of them mine), and I die heinously to my own creatures.

So far, I've fared extremely well against any strategy that drops a lot of creatures, which is to be expected—I have 25 cards in my deck dedicated to killing creatures! My loss so far came to Liliana Vess, backed with discard and mass-removal. The problem against that deck was that I didn't have enough offense to kill Liliana Vess (or drop her loyalty) before I got hit by her big ability.

By the same token... man, wouldn't I like to play Liliana Vess in my deck? My deck is filled with answers, and the ability to tutor up one of my choosing is fantastic. Also, I don't really have a way to attack the hand, and Liliana Vess is a ticking bomb—a card a turn, turning into a huge Zombify for every graveyard. After checking that Liliana Vess was a budget card (they are 3 tickets each, easily fitting into this deck under the 30-ticket-per-deck cap that this column has), I added three to the deck.

To make room, I took out one copy each of Big Game Hunter, Moonglove Changeling, and Ghostly Changeling. To be fair, I probably should have taken out all copies of Big Game Hunter here—it is great in a deck that can take advantage of it being a rebel (by tutoring it into play for free) or madness (by playing it at instant speed for a single ), but it is too situational in a deck that already packs so many answer-anything kill cards.

I face off against another deck that is light on creatures, and heavy on control—but in this case, the control is in the form of discard spells. I get hit with Stupor, Funeral Charm, Ravenous Rats, Stupor again, Funeral Charm again—basically, my entire hand gets stripped, and then The Rack comes down. I barely know what hits me before I get reduced to zero, without having played nearly any card of consequence—my creatures get Smallpoxed, making this an even more vexing experience!

Okay, time for some more changes. Garza's Assassin hasn't been great in this deck—once the Recover ability triggers, I almost never want to pay half my life to bring it back, meaning that it's not in the graveyard for Scarblade Elite. Cairn Wanderer has also been a big goose egg—my opponents don't like playing with non-vanilla creatures for the most part, so he's usually either been a 4/4, a 4/4 flyer, or a 4/4 first striker—and while I had him in there because he's cool (and an Assassin, and as a finisher), I figure I can swap him out with something more useful.

In the forums of my initial Lost Tribes article, several people suggested I use Nightshade Assassin in a mono-black Assassin deck. This makes sense—I'll almost always have black cards in hand in order to take advantage of him, and he's a Nekrataal that can hit black and artifact creatures when my hand is full. I swap three copies of Nightshade Assassin straight in for the Wanderers.

I also bring back in a Ghostly Changeling, which is a great beater in this deck. I tend to end up with a lot of mana at the end of the game, so he works like a Nightmare that I can drop on turn three to start the beats (plus, he's an Assassin).

The last swap-in I make is a threesome of Graveborn Muse. I keep running out of cards in hand in the longer games, and I need a way to fight attrition. Phyrexian Vault has been fantastic so far (in fact, much more so than I would have given it credit for—there are all sorts of spells you don't want your opponent to resolve on your creatures), but it isn't enough, Graveborn Muse works great with Changelings, and Phyrexian Vault gives me an out to get rid of Graveborn Muse should I get low on life.

So far, the deck has a very good record (I've won 75% of my games), but I haven't been happy with the role of Scarblade Elite. It is usually the first creature to hit the board (just by virtue of Mana cost), and it dies before it ever gets to tap. Even when I hold him back, my opponents kill him the second he hits the board. I considered using Thousand-Year Elixir as a way to speed up use of Scarblade Elite (including adding Royal Assassin to the deck, which would act as a great surprise!), but I didn't want to rely on a card I used just last week for a second deck in a row!

Adding Liliana Vess to the deck gives me a versatility to run my much-loved "silver bullet" strategy—a strategy in which you have lots of one-ofs in the deck, that you can tutor for to get you out of any given situation at a moment's notice. When we continue the evolution of Silent Killers next week, I'll see if I can engage Liliana's tutoring ability to a more profitable conclusion, while getting Scarblade Elite back into focus as the most feared Assassin of all! See you all in seven!